Powerful Extended Radio Sources: A Goldmine for Cosmology

Abstract

The radio properties of powerful extended radio sources may be used to study the environments of the sources, the source energetics, a characteristic length-scale that can be used as a cosmological tool, and the relation between radio galaxies and radio loud quasars. Thus, these sources offer a rich variety of diagnostics, both direct and indirect, of the cosmological model that describes our universe. They, indeed, are a goldmine for cosmology.

Perhaps the most significant result of the investigations mentioned here is the use of the radio properties of the sources to estimate the ambient gas density in the vicinity of the radio lobe. As discussed below, the ambient gas densities estimated using the strong shock jump conditions across the radio lobe indicate that these sources lie in relatively dense gaseous environments, similar to the intracluster medium found in clusters of galaxies at low redshift. Thus, the observations suggest that at least some clusters with their intracluster medium in place exist at high redshift.